Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/276

 656] the loyalists. Soon 10,000 men, partly by land, partly by river, set out to join the Caliph, who, advancing slowly, awaited their arrival. Thus reinforced, ʿAlī was able at last to take the field effectively, and march on the rebellious city.

Al-Baṣra itself was not wholly hostile, and numbers of the citizens came out to join the camp of ʿAlī. The insurgent army, which still nearly equalled that of the Caliph, now marched forth with Ṭalḥa and Az-Zubeir at their head, and ʿĀisha herself seated in a well-fenced litter. But ʿAlī's thoughts were for peace if possible. He was a man of compromise; and here he was ready, in the interests of Islām, magnanimously to forget the insult offered him. Apart, indeed, from personal jealousies, there was no disagreement sufficient to bar the hope of reconciliation. The cry of Ṭalḥa and Az-Zubeir was for vengeance against the murderers of ʿOthmān; and against these, ʿAlī as yet did not deny that justice should be dealt. But he was obliged to temporise. He had in his army great numbers of the very men who had risen against ʿOthmān; and he felt that to inflict punishment on them, as his adversaries required, would for the present be impossible. Holding these views, he halted, still some little way from Al-Baṣra, and sent forward Al-Ḳaʿḳāʿ (who with other leaders of renown had joined him from Al-Kūfa) to expostulate with Ṭalḥa and Az-Zubeir. "Ye have slain 600 men of Al-Baṣra," said Al-Ḳaʿḳāʿ to them, "for the blood of ʿOthmān; and lo! to avenge their blood, 6000 more have started up. Where is this internecine war to stop? It is peace and repose that Islām needeth now. Give that, and again the majesty of law shall be set up, and the guilty brought to justice." As he spoke, the truth flashed on the minds of Az-Zubeir and Ṭalḥa, and even of ʿĀisha; and they returned word that if these really were the sentiments of ʿAlī, they were ready to submit. After several days spent in such negotiations, ʿAlī, glad at the prospect of a bloodless compromise, advanced.

But, as we have seen, ʿAlī's army, recruited at random from the Bedawi settlements, comprised a great number of notorious regicides. Afraid of bringing these into contact with the heated army of his opponents, still breathing out fire and slaughter against them, ʿAlī gave command that none who had shared in the attack on ʿOthmān should for